Papers of John Adams, volume 20
I have received your Several Letters and Should have been glad of the opportunity to have Served you as far as might have been in my Power: but before the receipt of your first Letter the Place you Solicited had been filled by the President of the United States.1
I have represented your Character in the most favourable light to
the Secretary at War, and if you think of any other Way, or any particular affair in
which I can befriend you please to let me know it. The Ships Journal of our Voyage, I
wish you would Send to my son John Quincy Adams in Boston, who will preserve it for, sir
/ your humble servt
RC (MH-H:Tucker Papers); internal address: “Captain Tucker.”
Capt. Samuel Tucker (1747–1833), who commanded the Boston, a 24-gun Continental frigate, wrote to
JA on 1 Oct. 1790, 10 Nov., and 30 Dec. (all Adams Papers), seeking a federal appointment to the
Massachusetts revenue cutter. Tucker was not successful despite his long personal
acquaintance with the vice president and his family, which stretched back to the
Revolutionary War. JA and JQA secretly embarked for France
in Feb. 1778 via the Boston. Tucker kept a 62-page log of
the voyage, titled “An Abstract of a Journal,” which he sent to JQA at an
unknown date (M/Non-Adams/13, APM Reel 342;
AFC
, 1:xv–xvi; 2:389).